{"id":1834,"date":"2008-06-22T22:12:05","date_gmt":"2008-06-23T01:12:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.hoogervorst.ca\/arthur\/?p=1834"},"modified":"2008-06-22T22:12:38","modified_gmt":"2008-06-23T01:12:38","slug":"ready-to-go","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.hoogervorst.ca\/arthur\/?p=1834","title":{"rendered":"Ready to go"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span class=\"dropcap\">A<\/span><a href='http:\/\/www.hoogervorst.ca\/arthur\/?attachment_id=1835' rel=\"attachment wp-att-1835\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/www.hoogervorst.ca\/arthur\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/06\/re_pub_lica-150x120.jpg\" alt=\"Republica\" title=\"Republica\" width=\"150\" height=\"120\" class=\"alignright size-thumbnail wp-image-1835\" srcset=\"http:\/\/www.hoogervorst.ca\/arthur\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/06\/re_pub_lica-150x120.jpg 150w, http:\/\/www.hoogervorst.ca\/arthur\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/06\/re_pub_lica-300x240.jpg 300w, http:\/\/www.hoogervorst.ca\/arthur\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/06\/re_pub_lica.jpg 307w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 150px) 100vw, 150px\" \/><\/a> couple of weeks ago, I was humming the tune of Republica&#8217;s &#8220;Ready To Go&#8221;<a href='http:\/\/www.hoogervorst.ca\/arthur\/?attachment_id=1836' rel='attachment wp-att-1836'> (mp3, +30 seconds)<\/a>: earlier I had found an excellent live performance of the song at VH1 <a href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=s6NvOLjLSkA\">Loudly Fashionable<\/a> (or something like that), which led to a search for the original European version of the song.\n<\/p>\n<p>Apparently, the band (or rather their record company) released two versions of the song: A US version (which sounds a bit more rock-like and is probably the one everybody is familiar with) and a European one (which sounds a bit more &#8216;techno-like&#8217;). Adding to the confusion, the band also produced two different videos for each continent.  Whichever version you fancy, the song became a hit on both continents: in Europe the band got mainly positive reviews and was branded as one of the most promising UK bands. That was until the members decided to disband the band and <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Republica\">go their own ways<\/a>. Saffron, the band&#8217;s vocalist, ended up contributing to various other artists&#8217; recordings (The Cure, Junkie XL) and even sang in a London musical called <a href=\"http:\/\/news.bbc.co.uk\/2\/hi\/entertainment\/1755094.stm\">&#8216;Starlight Express&#8217;<\/a>. In between, there was an incident about a record company releasing an unauthorized &#8216;Best Of Republica&#8217; CD, which prompted a swift statement from Saffron and her fellow members to their fans not to buy this CD.\n<\/p>\n<p>What surprises me is that the song is popular with the YouTube crowd: from people who make <a href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/results?search_query=Ready+To+Go%2BRepublica&#038;search_type=&#038;aq=f\">machinima movies<\/a> to aspiring musicians who prefer to create &#8216;unplugged&#8217; versions of any hit-song mankind has ever produced. I&#8217;d be the last person in the world to say that this song doesn&#8217;t have a catchy chorus.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A couple of weeks ago, I was humming the tune of Republica&#8217;s &#8220;Ready To Go&#8221; (mp3, +30 seconds): earlier I had found an excellent live performance of the song at VH1 Loudly Fashionable (or something like that), which led to &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.hoogervorst.ca\/arthur\/?p=1834\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[20],"tags":[136],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.hoogervorst.ca\/arthur\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1834"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.hoogervorst.ca\/arthur\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.hoogervorst.ca\/arthur\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.hoogervorst.ca\/arthur\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.hoogervorst.ca\/arthur\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1834"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.hoogervorst.ca\/arthur\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1834\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.hoogervorst.ca\/arthur\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1834"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.hoogervorst.ca\/arthur\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1834"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.hoogervorst.ca\/arthur\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1834"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}